NEW DELHI: To comply with the minimum work hours prescribed by the Right to Education Act, 2009, the Directorate of Education has increased the work hours of government school teachers by half-an-hour.

The RTE mandates a minimum of 45 working hours per week for a teacher. "The teachers will get 30 extra minutes to plan their lessons, check notebooks, evaluate their own performance as well as that of their students [and] prepare teaching aids," says a statement issued by the department.

"Because almost 300 of the school buildings have to accommodate two schools (in shifts), the average time for a shift was 5.30 hours which included an assembly and a recess period. So, the effective teaching time left with the school was only 4.40 hours," says the statement explaining why the increase was required.

The government had made an attempt to increase teaching hours in January this year but had to withdraw that circular following protests. However, director, education, Padmini Singla says they hadn't withdrawn the %January circular but "had suspended it till this academic session."